1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to cloud computing and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for efficiently performing file services using cloud computing.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the advent of cloud computing, computational tasks may utilize the processing power of remote computers (i.e., servers). Files are stored locally on a client computer, while tasks (e.g., editing) is performed by application software executing on a cloud-based server. Many of these tasks are associated with the processing of specific information contained in files that are supplied to the cloud-based server, for example, by a web client, such as a browser. For example, if a task requires an edit to a particular page of a document, the entire document is sent to the server, the task is then applied to the document and the processed document returned to the client.
Conventional techniques require a client computer to upload an entire file onto the cloud-based server, even when the server may not require the entire file to complete a task or an atomic subtask. As a result, the overall system suffers from unnecessary network traffic, higher bandwidth utilization, performance degradation, poor response time and the like.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved method and apparatus for efficiently performing file services using cloud computing.